Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

“I cursed him,” Grandma repeated. “That evening when William called, he came through the door asking for you, and I didn’t know who he was, so I cursed him.”

Oh God. “What did you cast?”

“Rubber legs.”

The Edgers had many talents. The ability to curse wasn’t the rarest talent, but it was one of the strongest. The older you were, the stronger was your cursing. The elder Edgers had the cursing monopoly, and they didn’t warm up to new-comers until they were past middle age, which for some Edger families hit around seventy or so.

For most curses, there was no cure. They had to be broken by the target or left to run their course. If the target did manage to break your curse, the magic lashed out back at you. While you tried to deal with the consequences, a very put-out cursee might arrive with his trusty shotgun, intending to use you for target practice. And if the curse did succeed, often the family of the afflicted would petition one of the older cursers for help to bring you down to size. Then you really had problems. An Edger had to be well along in years and have a good deal of respect before she could get away with cursing someone, or the retribution would be swift and brutal.

Rose had learned cursing when she was only six, by accident, just like everyone else. The family was out at a barbe que, and a girl named Tina Watty had stolen her doll and thrown it on the grill. Rose wished Tina’s hair would fall out. As soon as she said it, her magic gushed, and then they had to go home. The next time she saw Tina, her long blond hair was gone, and short stubble covered her head.

Everyone was allowed one curse, their first one, because that’s how you learned you had the power. But after that, you learned to control yourself or there would be hell to pay. Luckily for her, Grandma was a curser as well, one of the best in East Laporte, and Rose got more education in the art of cursing than she would ever need. The only proper way to learn curses responsibly was to suffer through most of them. Grandmother knew a lot of curses, and Rose had wanted to learn badly. She’d tried rubber legs on for size when she was twelve.

Rubber legs was an excruciatingly painful curse. The victim felt her legs torn apart like string cheese. If she tried to take a step, she would inevitably plummet to the ground. The curse left no harmful effect and vanished after a half hour or so, but meanwhile a person could lose her mind.

And Grandma had cast it on Declan. It was a wonder he didn’t slaughter the lot of them.

“Why would you curse him?”

Grandma shrugged. “He surprised me.”

“What happened?”

“Your blueblood grunted a bit and shrugged it off. Just muscled on right through it. And that’s when I hit him with the bottle of olive oil and missed. He dodged, took the bottle out of my hands, and told me in perfect French that while he appreciated my vigor when defending my family, if I attempted to hit him again, I would sorely regret it.”

That sounded like Declan. “He’s good at intimidation,” Rose said.

Grandma nodded, her eyes opened wide. “Oh, I believed him. Besides, the curse had backlashed and I had to sit down. Do you know what I was going to do for a living before your rogue of a grandfather sailed into port with his ship and a dashing smile?”

“No.”

“Our village supplied retainers for Count d’Artois of the Kingdom of Gaul in the Weird. My family, in particular, had served him for years. Trust me, I recognize blood when I see it. I don’t know what Declan told you, but that boy has generations of blueblood ancestors to prop him up.”

Rose waved her hands. “I don’t think he is all that high on the peer ladder. Sometimes he forgets to act like a blueblood, and he’s almost normal. Besides, I checked him in the Encyclopedia , and it says ‘Earl Camarine’ is a courtesy title. He probably got it for his military service in the Red Legion.”

Grandma’s mouth closed with a click.

“What did I say now?”

“Nothing,” Grandma said. “Nothing at all. You’re right, Jack is probably safe with him. Still, don’t you think you better check on them?”

Rose glanced at the clock on the wall. Thirty minutes past noon. She was late, but the change in subject was awfully sudden. “There is something you’re not telling me.”

“Dear, I could fill this room with things I’m not telling you.”

Grandma had that particular glint in her eyes that said arguing was useless. Rose shook her head and went to look for Georgie. She found him curled up on the daybed, asleep.

“Leave him with me,” Grandma Éléonore said. “He needs the rest. I’ll walk him back when he’s awake.”

Rose sighed, hugged her, and left.

She went down the steps, crossed the lawn, and went to her truck. A challenge chaser. She never considered herself to be that way. Well, yes, she did work on her flash until it became an obsession, but that was because she had so little else to occupy her.

What she needed to do was to get home, have a long talk with Jack about not going off on wild field trips with enemies of the family, and explain to Declan . . . What the hell did she want to explain to Declan? That in the moments when he forgot about being a blueblood, she found herself drawn to him like a foolish little moth is drawn to a bug-zapping lantern?

Rose drove back to the house. Declan and Jack were still out. She dragged the groceries in and sorted them out between the freezer, fridge, and pantry. A bag of apples and a plastic container of strawberries came up missing. Probably still in the truck. She went outside.

As Rose approached the truck, broken glass crunched under her foot. Glittering shards from a busted windshield lay on the road, stretching to the left in a shiny trail. A quick glance at the truck assured her that her own windshield was intact. Rose crouched and examined the glass. Odd. Not the typical spray or sheet of glass that resulted from a crash. It looked as if someone had smashed a windshield and then carefully poured the pieces out to get her attention. She could’ve sworn it hadn’t been there when she got home.

The sparkling trail ended at an old pine. Rose frowned, looked up, and saw a license plate dangling off a branch on a cord. BOSSMAN. Emerson’s license plate. What in the world . . .

She scanned the road. At the far left a chunk of red metal lay on the side, by some bushes. She jogged to it. It was a piece of a red car hood in the precise tomato shade of Emerson’s SUV, its edges dark from the blowtorch burn.

Farther down the road, another chunk lay just before the bend. Rose strode to it, passed the curve, and saw a third red spot a hundred yards down. A trail of car crumbs, leading away from the house, toward the Broken. Very well. She jogged back to her truck and started it. She had to see where the car parts led.

ÉLÉONORE rose from the table, where a small piece of the beast floated in a jar of formaldehyde. The rest of the body had begun to decompose, and she’d had to bury it when she could no longer stand the smell.

“Talk to me,” she whispered. She had tried everything. She had called on Adele Moore, Lee Stearns, and Jeremiah. They looked through their books and diaries, and cast their spells, and burned their herbs. She even made the trip down to speak to Elsie, or what was left of her. Her efforts earned her nothing. The collective wisdom of East Laporte had failed.

Whatever the beast was, wherever it came from, it was evil. On that everyone agreed.

Rumors flew about. To the north, Malachai Radish and his family were gone from their trailer, their place torn apart and left open. Malachai was never the sharpest tool in the shed and his truck was missing, so it was possible he just lost his marbles and took off with his wife and his kids without telling anyone. But Éléonore doubted it. Adele heard rumors of the dogs vanishing into the night. And Dena Vaughn found her livestock slaughtered. Something killed the small herd of pygmy goats and painted the hill where they grazed with their entrails.